Textiles often become hard and lose their softness with repeated washing. To restore softness and flexibility to textiles and to impart fragrance and antistatic properties, textiles are often treated with a fabric softener in a separate rinsing operation conducted after the actual washing and cleaning process.
Most commercial fabric softeners are aqueous compositions comprising a cationic textile softening compound having one or two long-chain alkyl groups. For example, cationic softeners may comprise methyl-N-(2-hydroxyethyl)-N,N-di(tallow acyloxyethyl) ammonium compounds or N,N-dimethyl-N,N-di(tallow acyloxyethyl) ammonium compounds.
Such cationic fabric conditioning compounds cannot be used in the wash cycle with detergents that contain anionic surfactants because of the interaction between the cationic conditioner and anionic surfactant. In this case, a separate rinse cycle with the cationic conditioner is required, which may be time and energy intensive.
A further disadvantage of conventional cationic fabric softeners is that they do not prevent deposition of lime scale on the laundered fabrics during the rinse cycle. In addition, cationic softeners often leave behind unsightly deposits in the dispensing tray of washing machines.
Problems may also occur with other fabric conditioners that need to be dosed separately and/or need to be used in a separate rinse cycle.
Solid fabric treatment agents in granular form have been described in the prior art. For example, PCT Application Publication WO2007/115872 (Artiga-Gonzalez, et al.) discloses a granular fabric treatment agent comprising a water-soluble carrier having a coating comprising a water-soluble polymer and fragrance, where the coating is at least partially coated with a fabric care compound.
However, such granular products may agglomerate during production and storage due to an inherent “stickiness,” giving rise to processing problems and consumer dosing problems.
What is still lacking in the art is a free-flowing solid fabric treatment agent containing a water-soluble carrier that further comprises a water-soluble polymer, a fragrance, and a fabric care compound, which does not agglomerate or clump during production and storage.